Elsa is a character from the movie Frozen by Disney. My affair with the Elsa dress began when my 5yr old niece became a fan with the movie and particularly with Elsa. My niece would use blankets as pretend cape to copy Elsa. She also loves to sing the song "Let it go" over and over again. I personally liked Elsa's dress. I got an idea and the confidence to do one.
I looked for the perfect fabric first. There are so many to choose from. Being it as my first dress project, I decided to buy the cheaper fabric which I think will still work well for the dress. With a lot of thinking and after looking at many pictures of Elsa's dress, I finally got a design idea.
I measured my niece and I also borrowed a dress from her as my reference/guide. I divided the dress project into 4 parts. The skirt, bodice, sleeves, and cape. I cut out the fabric for the skirt first. I assembled them by doing running stitches to attach them. I tried the skirt on my niece to check if i am on the right track.
For the bodice, I used my niece's dress as reference and measured her as well. I layered two fabrics for this. When assembling the pieces, I thought I needed to put some sparkle on the bodice. I thought of using sparkling beads to put in front but it seems to be a lot of hard work and I dont have any idea how to put it together. I went for a stroll in the crafts section at the mall and looked at some options. I found ribbons with the right color and with sparkles too. They are very cheap by meter. I thought of just sewing them in with a thread color to match. I actually hand sewn them on the front fabric. I arranged the ribbon pieces to look like they are like dripping ice. At least that's what I imagined them to be. It actually turned out great. I also added a ribbon to where the skirt and the bodice meet. I hand sewn everything with a temporary running stitch.
The trickiest part for me was the sleeves. I dont know how to work with laces/net fabric. I designed it for me to have minimal stitching and cutting. I only sew the bottom part of the arms and the tips of the shoulder. I did blanket stitch on all the edges to clean off the fabric.
It seems to be turning out great. The last thing to add was the cape. It is the easiest part since the fabric is pre-cut, I only trimmed off the part that is to be attached to the bodice. And so everything was put together and it turned out great. I sew everything with a sewing machine by tracing back where I did my running stitches. I took out the running stitches first before running them on the sewing machine. The reversed side is not very professionally made looking but I think the project was still a success. My niece loved it and had been wearing the dress almost everyday or at least after every wash. lol. Well, I hope you enjoyed my story.
